On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) stated that “we should all be concerned when the Secretary fires so many senior general officers and admirals” due to the number of high-level vacancies and how long it’s taking to fill them and said that the firings have been done without explanation. He also stated that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth “wouldn’t be my choice” for the role.
Bacon said, “Well, we have a great military, we have great personnel at all ranks. But I think we should all be concerned when the Secretary fires so many senior general officers and admirals. Three stars, four stars, and not only three and four stars, he’s redlined — which means he’s crossed out — a lot of one star promotees and two star promotees. And there’s been — and it’s a significant number. And yes, the Constitution gives them that right to fire and hire who he wants, but it doesn’t make it morally right, and it doesn’t make it wise. And so, right now, in the Army, we’re missing a…secretary of the Army and the Army chief of staff. So, the top two leadership positions are vacant. And what we — like when the Cyber Command commander was fired, he wasn’t replaced for 10 to 11 months. So we’re seeing a lot of vacancies and a lot of, I would say inertia, because you don’t have someone in there able to make tough and hard decisions for whatever service they’re leading or whatever organization. But I think Americans, we want someone to get fired if they’re not performing or if they did something wrong, but to fire this huge number of people with no explanation — and I know some of these guys, I asked them, why did you get fired? He says, they didn’t give me an explanation, no reason why. I think most Americans want more decency, and I would say respect. You should give a person a reason why if you’re going to fire them, and that’s not happening here.”
Host Kasie Hunt then asked, “You just laid out criteria for firing people, including performance. Do you think Pete Hegseth is performing to a standard that he should be fired?”
Bacon answered, “I would say he’s serving, following the president’s orders and following his wishes. The president selected him to, I guess, execute what he wants done. But I would — he’s not — wouldn’t be my choice. I’ll just say it that way. My choice would be, I’m much more into Secretary Mattis type of leadership and transparency. And so I have concerns. I have concerns with these firings. I think Americans want an explanation. When you fire someone, you should tell them. And I think, at this kind of number, the American public deserves to know why this is going on. Secondly, I think some of the media things that have been done are not wise, getting rid of a lot of the top media out of the Pentagon. And to claim that they did that because they were working around classified information. Well, I worked in the Pentagon twice. And when you have classified information, you work in a vault. Media [are] not welcome in there. Now, they do walk the halls, they go to the cafeteria, and they’re in public areas, but they weren’t having access to classified information. The Pentagon has a history of a much more healthy relationship with the media. And this has been, I guess, harmed in the last couple of years. I had concerns with Signalgate. He was mad at the journalists for doing the story and not himself for putting classified information on Signal. And most people like me would say, if you make a mistake, you own up to it, say, I made a mistake, I learned my lesson, and it’s not going to happen again. But that’s not what we heard here. He was blaming the reporter who put out the story. And, ultimately, we should all know we don’t put classified information on an unclassified application or telephone. And that’s what happened here. So, I’ve been critical. I’m not saying he’s failed across the board, but there’s certain areas where you’d expect better from the secretary of defense.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
